Sunday, October 14, 2012

Is Your Surname on the Map?

An interesting point pops up in the conversation regarding
the search for Thomas Taliaferro Broyles’ grave: that there might be two men in
Tennessee at
the same time with the name Thomas Broyles.

Surnames can be the source of some interesting searches—and some
interesting detours. I'm not talking about a surname as common as, say, Smith. I mean taking on the challenge of a name you just don't see every day. Broyles is one of those surnames that has just the right
amount of differentness to it to make things interesting.

I always knew that. When I first heard my mother tell stories
about my maternal grandmother’s family, I guess I was young enough to
misunderstand the pronunciation of the surname. With just the slip of one “inconsequential”
letter, the name morphs to Boyles—a much more common surname. When I finally
got the gist of slipping that “r” back into its rightful place, I realized how
often I’d run across people named Boyles…and how rarely I’d bumped into anyone
named Broyles.

Take those years I was far away from home at college on the
west coast. At first, like any college freshman, I didn’t know a soul. As I
found my voice and found a way to meet people, out of the haze of newness I
eventually discovered that there were two guys on campus—twins, I think, or
close enough to fool me—who were named Broyles.

I just knew we had to be related. Somehow.

Believe it or not, as much as I can “talk” on paper to
people I don’t know, I can’t find it in me to talk to strangers. So I never did
say anything to those guys. Or maybe I did. I can’t remember, but nothing
monumental came of it. I still can’t shake that thought that we might have
been, oh, say, tenth cousins or something. It’s just that the Broyles name is
not that common.

Taliaferro, the other surname I’m concentrating on right
now, is another case in point. I remember being at one work meeting—and this
was years after I got over my can’t-talk-to-strangers
phobia—I ran into this financial rep, took one look at his name tag, and
blurted out, “We must be related!”

Of course, he took a look at my name tag, saw a vastly different
spelling printed there for my last name, and gave me a look like perhaps I was
crazy—or at least illiterate. I think I redeemed my image by some quick talking,
and we agreed that, with a name as rare as that, there was indeed a good chance
that, somewhere back in Virginia
give or take a couple centuries, we were family.

It turns out there are actually websites online that can
provide readouts for the geographic distribution of any given surname. Worldwide distribution. Of course, that
would provide a fascinating visual for a surname like Lee—not only a common
name, but one which has attained Smith-like status in several different
cultures.

But I’m not looking for Lee. I’m looking for oddball and
unusual. Like Broyles. And if that weren’t enough, give me something like
Taliaferro. That’ll put a website like that through its paces!

Though Wikipedia gives a clickable list of several such surname
map generators, I’m afraid not all of those references are currently available.
Dynastree, for instance, though one resource I’ve heard about in years
past, didn’t seem to work for me when I attempted a search there yesterday.

However, I struck the mother lode with the resource at PublicProfiler.

When I entered the search term, “Broyles,” into the PublicProfiler dialog box, at the top of the
results readout was a world map showing countries with any distribution of the
surname, sorted into color-coded categories by “frequency per million.” While I
expected Germany to have a
good showing in the results, that country—as well as France—had a “low” distribution.
The country with the highest distribution was the United States.

When I clicked on a specific country, the website provided
additional information. I clicked on the United States to see what further
details I could find. As I could have predicted from my little bit of Broyles
research, the states with the greatest showing were Tennessee
(which topped the list) and what is now West
Virginia. (At the time the Broyles family settled
there, it was undoubtedly considered part of Virginia.)

The charts below the map list further data: top countries
for the surname with frequency of distribution, top regions within the country,
and top cities. In the case of Broyles, it was no surprise to see Greeneville,
Tennessee—final resting place of another
Thomas Broyles, whom I’ll discuss in a later post—and among those top five
cities is Jonesborough, home of my Thomas Broyles.

Since it was so fun putting this handy online vehicle
through its paces, I thought I’d take another lap around my family tree and
check out the surname Taliaferro. This one was interesting. England, the supposed source of Taliaferro emigration to
the United States,
was the lowest of the top five countries listed. Germany
and Belgium
also were included in the top five. Of course, the United
States was ranked number one—followed at a distance by
the surprise number two spot, Canada.
Quebec and British
Columbia claimed their share of Taliaferros to the north of the United States.
And in America, the
predictable locations of concentration include the area around Virginia and Maryland.

This worldnames.publicprofiler.org site is the result of research
projects done at University College London regarding the geography of family
names. It is free to use. The only downside—and this is where the element of
trust comes in—is that, to use the site, you must provide your email address.
Other than that, the only restriction is that the use must be for
non-commercial purposes.

For those, like me, who need to know more about a topic than
is even remotely necessary, the website provides a FAQ section, and another website provides an explanation and sample applications that show how to put
the program through its paces.

So go ahead: take this bright shiny thing out for a spin.
You should have some fun with it.

In the meantime, it helps me rest my case: while there aren’t
too many people with the name Thomas Broyles out there in the world, chances
get much higher that in Tennessee, you’ll not only find your man, but two or
three others who claim that same exact name.

6 comments:

I took this baby for a spin and found, for the most part, what I already know: today's Jolletts are in New York, Maryland, and California. I was surprised AND disappointed not to find any in France. I guess they all left. Thanks for the link!

Glad you checked it out, Wendy. Actually, if I understand the fine print on that website correctly, it ought to be showing us what the current situation is...so what you already know should align with their data. At least that's a plus for the confidence level, even if it popped your bubble that there might be more Jolletts in France. So much for staying with family on your next trip to Paris, eh?

For those of us on top of the game of genealogical pursuits, I guess a program like that wouldn't find any way to surprise us. But it is a fun little device to play around with. Who knows--it may even come up with a surprise bit of data from time to time!

I have some really rare surnames in my father's line, so I'll have to see if I can stump the thing with names like that, too. Interesting that the Swedish link for your maiden name was unexpected. Any possibility of spelling variations?

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.